Sunday, April 19, 2015

In this Morton Grove post we take a break from reprising the Dempster Street roadhouse era to honor a person's life.We chronicle the accomplishments of one of Morton Grove's favorite sons, or I should say a favorite Sonne -- Fred Sonne that is. He was a machinist who wanted to be an engineer, an engineer who dreamed about becoming a pilot, a pilot who studied to be a photographer, and a photographer who aspired to serve his country. He was driven and committed. Fred Sonne combined his myriad interests and honed his varied skills to become inventor and pioneer in the fields of aerial photography and surveillance camera design. In so doing, he helped to shape the course of history.The Fred Sonne Airfield.Fred Sonne is remembered primarily today by Morton Grovers for the operation of Sonne Airfield. The Morton Grove Community Relations Commission honored Sonne for that with a commemorative street corner plaque, which states in part:

The Fred Sonne Airfield, which operated from 1919 to 1932, was established in an open prairie that stretched from Dempster Street north to the forest preserve and between what is now Moody and Meade Avenues. Early air shows were held here featuring stunts such as wing walking, parachute jumps, and other aerobatics. Chance Lawson, a pilot hired for a local promotion, had to make an emergency landing at Wayside Woods, now known as Linne Woods. One of the wings was damaged during the landing. A local resident, Fred Sonne, repaired the damaged airplane. This incident started their friendship, and later on they became business partners. The two men purchased surplus World War I biplanes which they assembled and sold to other pilots. In later years as many as 30 planes were stored at the field.

Fate took a hand in the selection of a career for Fred T. Sonne by causing an ancient Jenny [Curtis JN-4] plane to crack up in May, 1919, on his grandfather's farm in Dempster Ave. some miles west of Evanston.

The Jenny was being flown by George Russell, a World War I pilot, and Chance Losson to a nearby golf club for an exhibition. Sonne, then 20, retrieved and fixed the plane and thereby started a lifetime career in aviation.

*****

The day before Memorial day in May, 1919, occurred the big event which changed the young man's life -- the crash of the Jenny plane in his grandfather's hay field. The occupants weren't hurt but the plane was a mess. Fred looked it over and figured he could fix it. He made a deal to rebuild it for a fourth interest.

Soon thereafter Fred quit his job with Otis [Elevator Co.] and entered into an "airplane partnership."

Fred Sonne's formal education ended with his graduation from grammar school. But his actual education was lifelong.

Fred Sonne was born Feb. 9, 1899, on Argyle St., [Chicago] near the present " L" station. He was the second child in a family which included six boys and one girl. When Fred was a year old the family moved to Morton Grove. His father, William W., was an engineer for the Automatic Electric company, and prior to that he had worked for Western Electric company

Fred went to grammar school in the suburb. The youngster went to the Lutheran church in town. He was especially fond of his grandfather, Fred Huscher, who had a farm near Morton Grove.

When Fred was about 10 the father became ill and thereafter worked only intermittently. So the youngster and his older brother both pitched in to help supply the family with an income. Fred delivered newspapers and worked on his grandfather's farm.

Bright in his studies, the boy skipped a couple of grades and so was graduated from grammar school in 1911 when he was 12. He immediately went to work for an uncle, Fred Jr., who had a coal and ice business in Morton Grove.

After leaving grammar school Fred continued his reading under the guidance of a teacher who was anxious to see him continue his education.

Foreman Takes Interest in Young Sonne.

About 1914 he got a job with Otis Elevator company, starting as an apprentice. He first worked in the wood shop and six months later moved to the machine shop.

Charles Klein, a foreman, took an interest in the boy when he saw how interested he was in his work. Klein gave him books to read on machine tools and taught him how to sharpen tools.

The foreman gave the youngster some advice:

"Learn to let the machine work for you. Make the machine work as hard as it can and run it to the limit of its capacity."

By heeding this advice the boy found he could get twice as much out of a machine as older men in the shop. In World War I Fred tried to get in naval aviation but was unable to do so. He worked on rudder posts for Liberty ships which the Otis plant produced.

Early on the Fred Sonne Airfield was known as the Lincoln Tavern Aviation Field. Fred's early (and elder) business associate, Chance Losson (or Lawson), operated out of Lincoln Tavern aviation field. Another elder associate of Fred Sonne, Price Hollingworth, was the proprietor.

The Daily Herald, October 1, 1920

Aerial Age Weekly, June 5, 1922.

Balloons to Jets, A Century of Aeronautics in Illinois

Price Hollingworth (Yale class of 1915) was a sporting chap. He participated in the 1921 Chicago Airplane Derby, an airplane race around Chicago, no doubt with promotional value in mind.

The Economist, September 3, 1921

When Fred Sonne and associates were not refurbishing or reselling airplanes, they barnstormed and booked air excursions to entertain passengers curious to experience the thrill of flight.

Hollingworth Flyers open for business,

The Daily Herald, May 27, 1921

A war time flyer instructor, Price Hollingworth, became one of the group which flew passengers at $25 a head at that time and gave exhibitions at county fairs. Passengers were flown from the grandfather's Dempster av. hay field. For the $25 they were given one. loop in the air and then a spin from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet.

Chicago Tribune, September 25, 1921

Learn to Fly in Spring of '20

In the spring of 1920 both Losson, a motion picture projector operator, and Sonne learned to fly. Fred had 40 minutes of solo flight and then took up a passenger for $15. Later he and his associates were to stand on wings during flights at county fairs.

Commercial Operations of Fred Sonne and Chicago Aerial Services CompanyCompetition and the waning novelty of airplane flight drove down the financial return on aerial touring. At the same time, businesses began to conjure ways to extract commercial value from manned flight.

In 1923 the group took on a salesman named Art Weber who said he bet he could sell an airplane photo. He got an order from the Stewart-Warner corporation to take a photo of its plant for $1,200.

Sonne read a book on taking photos from the air and borrowed a camera. The job was a success. By that time the price of airplane rides had dropped to $5 and so the question was:

Why sell rides to passengers at $5 a ride when you can get $1,200 for photos?

Soon after the foregoing deal Sonne walked into the office of Eugene W. Fuller at 332 S. Michigan av., on business. Fuller supplied air photos to customers. He sold but could not fly, so it was a natural for him and Sonne to form a partnership. They incorporated their enterprise in 1924 as Chicago Aerial Survey company.

In the ensuing years the enterprise was successful in selling its photos to real estate, governmental, and other buyers of such pictures. The business was fairly depression proof and the partners weathered the troubles of the early 1930s without too much difficulty.

Eugene Fuller's nephew describes the formation of Chicago Aerial Survey company from Fuller's point of view.

Gene formed the Chicago Aerial Survey Company with offices in the
McCormick Building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. He would contract with organizations, such as
local governments and companies doing surveys, who were interested in purchasing his photos. He
maintained a small staff, (Bob Reid Fuller joined CAS and later took charge of the Photo Department) at
first relying on pilots he knew to fly the missions, and on a well-known Chicago photographic firm to
furnish the cameramen. Eventually, he joined up with Fred Sonne ... the inventor of the Sonne camera.

Fred Sonee was a workhorse for Chicago Aerial Survey Company. In the summer of 1926, he flew "10,450 miles ... taking photographs of Chicago and adjoining towns and cities."

His assignments in 1927 included taking pictures of Milwaukee. Fred Sonne said he needed "clear weather to get good results. It will take two or three days."

The Daily Herald, October 21, 1927

Fred Sonne flew up to Milwaukee again in 1929, this time bringing along the wife. She shivered at 7,000 feet right through two coats.

The Daily Herald, July `12, 1929

This Milwaukee trip apparently was on behalf of the Chicago sanitary district which was involved in interstate litigation before the United States Supreme Court. It was feared that sanitary district water diversion would lower Lake Michigan's water levels; there was a disagreement between state and federal authorities on how much water the district could divert.

Ironwood Daily Globe, September 23, 1929

Hughes Resumes Hearings in Lake Diversion Case

Washington, Sept. 23 -- (AP) -- [Former supreme court associate justice] Charles Evans Hughes resumed hearings today in the Great Lakes Diversion case .... Hughes, special master for the supreme court in suits brought by the lake states, is hearing testimony on a suit to compel the sanitary district of Chicago and the state of Illinois to cease diverting water from Lake Michigan for sewage disposal.

******

Testimony today by witnesses for the defendants revolved about an effort to put into the record experts' opinions concerning conditions in Milwaukee, where a sewage disposal plant such as is proposed by Chicago already is in operation.

Hughes ruled inadmissible testimony by the chief engineer of the Milwaukee power plants, which would have given the results of a survey of conditions there last summer.

******

E. D. Paddock, counsel for the sanitary district, next presented Fred T. Sonne, aerial photographer of Chicago, who, it was explained, was to offer testimony concerning photographs of the Milwaukee lake front. The master allowed the photographs to be identified and marked, ruling that should they become relevant later they might be admitted.

The next photo is a present day Google earth view from a similar perspective. There is considerable infill development. The heavily developed area to the left includes the University of Chicago Medical Center campus. Modern day Stagg Field is a block and one-half northwest of the original site. Notice in the present day the large lake shore high rises on the right.

In this 1937 Fred Sonne Chicago lakefront photo (next), the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower are visible just to the right of the Chicago River at Michigan Avenue. At the time, the tallest buildings in Chicago were the Chicago Board of Trade Building (left, 605 feet), the Temple Building (center, 568 feet) and the Palmolive Building (right 565 feet).

Prairie Passage: Illinois and Michigan Canal Corridor.

In the modern day Google maps view (following), new skyscrapers dwarf and obscure the 1937 skyline. The Willis Tower (far left), Aon Center (left center), Trump International (centerr) and John Hancock Center (right) are all in excess of 1,100 feet.

By the 1930s most of the land in Morton Grove north of Dempster and east of present day Harrer Park, had been sold off to developers, subdivided and sidewalk grids installed. While home building on the lots would freeze up during the Great Depression, Fred Sonne airfield was no more. Fred and Chicago Aerial Survey company moved their flight operations north to the recently opened Curtiss airport in Glen View, predecessor the the Glen View Naval air station (now site of the Glen Club).

In 1934 Fred Sonne photographed Racine and Kenosha Wisconsin,

Wilmette Life, Novermber 22, 1934

as well as Peoria.

Wilmette Life, December 6, 1934

He photographed Barrington and environs in 1935.

Wilmette Life, September 12, 1935.

From Real Estate to Reconnaissance: Fred Sonne Develops Cameras for the Military

Fred Sonne became more than a local and regional aerial photographer not because he was a great photographer or skilled pilot, but as a result to his design and manufacture of an ingenious camera that had important military applications. The Chicago Tribune reported it this way:

Sonne in taking air photos frequently found that there was no camera which quite met his needs so he developed his own cameras and other equipment.

Shows Device to Army Friend in 1939.

In 1932 he had an idea for taking pictures on a continuous strip, but no use for it. He showed the device to an army friend in 1939 when war talk was in the air.

The friend was enthusiastic and soon Sonne got an order from the army air corps. The first military camera was built in the basement of Sonne's home. After getting an army order for 13 cameras the company established a small plant on W. Erie St.

Meantime, Sonne, who had never stopped studying from the time he left school, developed numerous highly technical devices for the taking of photos in high speed planes such as jets. And his devices entered into the field of electronics.When the war ended the company had about 250 employees. Because most of its operations had become manufacturing instead of photographic the company's name was changed to [Chicago Aerial Industries]. Fuller was the first president. On his retirement Sonne took over the title.

In the days leading up to World War II Sonne's camera work made him into a minor celebrity. Kellogg's Corn Flakes used Sonne's image and persona in advertisements. Ads appeared in newspapers nationwide,

Arizona Independent Republic, June 14, 1941\

as well as in Life Magazine (read by more than ten million weekly).

Life Magazine, April 7, 1941

Popular Mechanics magazine described the development of Sonne's continuous strip camera.

How deep? The riddlle solved by Sonne's camera, Popular Mechanics, May, 1946

The story of this new photographic development goes back ... to a man in Chicago named Fred Sonne. He was engaged in making aerial surveys and manufacturing equipment in this work.

Sonne was endeavoring to find some means of making large-scale photographs from low altitudes. To him the circuit camera, that venerable monstrosity responsible for many old-time panoramic view, offered a principle of operation that could be utilized in aerial photography. The principle is a simple one -- the film, traveling opposite to the direction of flight, is made to pass before a slit opening, which acts as a shutter, and the image is literally painted on the film.

Sonne's original camera was a single-lens model with an adjustable slit and a variable rate of film travel. It produced a continuous photograph nine inches wide by any length up to 200 feet, but it still did not meet military requirements.

In time Sonne's camera was improved and adapted to include two lenses to produce two images, and yield stereoscopic imagery that could be analyzed to assess height differences or underwater depth, data critical to planning amphibious military operations. Electronic circuitry was developed to automatically synchronize camera operation with aircraft navigation, taking airspeed and altitude into account.

The Sonne strip camera was used by the Navy in World War II to assess depths in the waters off of Saipan and Okinawa, in preparation for amphibious landings. In Korea, this camera in an Air Force "Shooting Star" jet performed the vital beach reconnaissance that preceded the Inchon landings of General MacArthur's ground troops.

Pilots equipped with Sonne cameras were instructed to do everything possible to avoid enemy contact -- a string of detailed photographs, not proximate destruction of the enemy, was the objective.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, November 8, 1944

The reconnaissance plane makes a preliminary survey of the area from a great height, then makes a fast run over the specific strip to be photographed of about 100 feet with the slit open and the film moving past, thus exposing the film. This new, low-level photography has several military advantages.

Flying so close to the ground, the plane is below the effective range of anti-aircraft fire. Moreover, at speeds in the neighborhood of 300 miles per hour, the ground gunner doesn't have time to aim his weapon for a direct hit before the plane is gone. Photographs taken of crowds show that the people hadn't yet had time to look up to see their danger before the film was exposed.

Another advantage of photographing from such a low altitude is that there is sufficient light to make it possible to use colour film in the relatively "slow"strip camera.

The strip film can be printed with amazing rapidity in the new "strip printer" also invented by Mr. Sonne. It has been reported that 200-foot roll of film from the strip camera can be developed and printed within 15 minutes of the time it reaches the base laboratory.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The US government put out ballistic missile range maps

during the Cuban missile crisis. The intermediate ring came

uncomfortably close to the Chicago area as far as my nine-year

old mind was then concerned.

On 14 October 1962, a US air force plane on a reconnaissance flight captured photographic evidence of Soviet Union missile bases under construction in Cuba, setting in train a crisis which brought the US and the Soviet Union close to thermonuclear war. I was nine years old at the time. I remember a map printed on the front page of the newspaper showing the probable range of Cuba launched missiles. I recall my father warning me that the Cuban missile crisis could trigger World War III. He had lived through World Wars I and II, and wanted to prepare me for the shock. But a previously weak and vacillating, young United States president, developed backbone and stared Nikita Kruschev down.

Incriminating missile base photographic footage was produced using instruments designed by Fred Sonne and the company he founded. It was presented to the world as incontrovertible evidence of Kruschev's aggressive intentions. There is no saying what might have happened if the Soviets had been able to complete installation of the Cuban missile bases undetected and unchallenged.

Low altitude photo coverage was required and six Navy and Marine Crusader RF-8 Crusader jets were scheduled to fly a low level reconnaissance mission on 23 October. The mission, flown low and fast, brought back clear, close-up pictures of the missile sites and also showed that the Soviets were testing the missiles for launch. CDR William Ecker, Commanding Officer Navy Photographic Squadron 62 commented, "When you can see the writing on the side of the missiles then you really know what you've got."

A U-2 was shot down over Cuba by a SAM missile on 27 October. Major Rudolph Anderson USAF was killed and his U-2 crashed in the jungle on the east end of the island. A low-level reconnaissance mission was flown with six F8U-1P Crusader jets later on the 27th.. Two of the jets aborted the mission early due to mechanical problems, but the remaining four continued on their mission. Cuban ground forces shot at the photo Crusaders with anti-aircraft guns and small arms as they passed over the San Cristóbal and Sagua la Grande missile sites. One RF-8 was hit by a 37mm shell but returned safely.

After the U-2 with Major Anderson was shot down, the decision was made to use low altitude photography to more clearly ID the sites. The mission was given to the Navy and specifically to VFP-62 stationed at NAS Cecil Field, FL. Most of the RF-8 aircraft (formerly F8U-1P) had only one kind of image motion compensation, and that was a "rocker mount" -- the mount the camera was mounted on would rock back and forth while the shutter was open so that the image on the ground would be in the same location on the film and the photo would not be blurred. Because of the size of the mounts and the speed at which they could rock back and forth, that was OK for most applications, but not for low (1,000 feet agl) and fast (480kts). An outfit named Chicago Aerial Industries developed a camera that had it's own image motion compensation: while the lens was open, the film would move in the opposite direction of flight so that the blur was eliminated, then when the shutter closed, it would run the exposed portion of the film quickly so that the film was ready for another photo. Once again, this system had some speed limitations, but using both the rocker mounts and the new cameras, we could get perfect photos at low altitudes and fast speeds.

Cuban Missile Crisis "Sonne" camera recon photo.

Aerial picture taken 09 November 1962 on the Cuban coast of the Soviet

freighter "Anosov" carrying missiles in accordance with the

US-Soviet agreement on the withdrawal of the Russian Missiles from Cuba.

On October 28, 1962 Premier Kruschev agreed to remove the offending offensive missiles from Cuba in return for the United State's agreement to respect Cuban territorial sovereignty. The withdrawal was confirmed by aerial surveillance of Soviet cargo ships.The Air Force lifted its veil of secrecy in 1964 to publicly congratulate Fred Sonne for his many contributions.

The citation honored Sonne for thirty years of super-secret work with aerial cameras and photographic equipment used from World War II through the Cuban missile crisis.

As examples of Sonne's work, Col. Arthur E. Smith, director of air force reconnaisance at Andrews air force base, Md., brought to Chicago prints of military photographs taken "in action" by air force and navy pilots.

The same camera, a special version of a Sonne "photo system," Col. Smith said, took sharp pictures at the speed of sound at 100 feet above the ground, and made equally perfect shots at one and one half times the speed of sound from 50,000 feet.

Work is Secret.

"Because of the most severe military secret classifications clamped on Mr. Sonne's work," said Col. Smith, "not even his friends and neighbors knew what he was producing in his Barrington plant. But we in the military were using it at beach landings in 1943-44; at Inchon in Korea in September, 1950; and again over Cuba when his pictures showed the Russian 5A-type missiles in position to be used against the United States.

Col. Smith said that Sonne's special contributions to aerial photography included: development of a continuous strip camera [an entirely new principle when first proved feasible]; an image-motion compensator [enabling crystal clear pictures to be taken at multisonic speeds]; automatic [electronic] exposure control; fully integrated camera control systems; the Sonne strip printer[able to turn out 12,000 prints in eight hours]; and in 1950, the navigational viewfinder, for high speed jet photo-pilots.

The Sonne group of engineers have developed film and shutter control to allow as many as 3,000 exposures a second [needed in low-altitude supersonic photo missions].

Pioneer in Controls.

Sonne has pioneered in using new stainless steels in shutters, new precision electronic motors and controls in cameras and in film movements, and new electronic adjustments for changing light during photo runs. One of the newest developments permits full photographic work in pitch-black night.

Sonne, a Chicago native, began making aerial photos in 1922, and Chicago Aerial Surveys still is a division of the larger Aerial Industries corporation. The latter became the more important with a flood of World War II contracts which have continued to this day.

Sonne, 66, died in Evanston Hospital, while undergoing surgery for a heart ailment.

He was president of Chicago Aerial Indudstries, manufacturer of aerial cameras and navigational equipment.A year ago, Sonne was cited by the Air Force for his 30 years of super-secret work with aerial cameras. Associates said he was completely without formal education.

He invented the "Sonne strip printer," an automatic exposure control reportedly capable of producing 12,000 prints in eight hours. He also developed an "image motion compensator," which permits un-blurred aerial photography of moving objects on the ground.

Sonne is survived by his widow, Itoko, whom he married shortly after she came to the U.S. from Japan in 1960, and her three children by a former marriage, whom he adopted. One son, Deiji, 20, and a daughter, Hiroko, 23, live in Northbrook. Another son, Yasuharu, 24, lives in Tokyo.

Full text of Chicago Tribune's Fred Sonne to-that-point life story as part of its 1956 Road to Success series.

The Road to Success A Sketch of Fred T. Sonne, President of Chicago Aerial Industries By Philip T. Hampson

FRED T. SONNE

Chicago Tribune, June 2, 1956

Fate took a hand in the selection of a career for Fred T. Sonne by causing an ancient Jenny [Curtis JN-4] plane to crack up in May, 1919, on his grandfather's farm in Dempster Ave. some miles west of Evanston.

The Jenny was being flown by George Russell, a World War I pilot, and Chance Losson to a nearby golf club for an exhibition. Sonne, then 20, retrieved and fixed the plane and thereby started a lifetime career in aviation.

Sonne, now 57, Is the president of Chicago Aerial Industries, formerly Chicago Aerial Survey company, noted for its air photos of the Chicago area.The company as it is now set up produces a wide range of highly technical -- a lot of it secret -- equipment used in aerial photography and in aerial reconnaissance by United States military forces.

The subject of this morning's sketch is concerned with a person who had to drop out of school early in life to help out at home. Nevertheless, he obtained an education "on his own" which enabled hint to meet the highly technical demands of this modern age.

Family Moves to Morton Grove

Fred Sonne was born Feb. 9, 1899, on Argyle St., near the present " L" station. He was the second child in a family which included six boys and one girl. When Fred was a year old the family moved to Morton Grove. His father, William W., was an engineer for the Automatic Electric company and prior to that he had worked for Western Electric company

Fred went to grammar school in the suburb.The youngster went to the Lutheran church in town. He was especially fond of his grandfather, Fred Huscher, who had a farm near Morton Grove.

When Fred was about 10 the father became ill and there- after worked only intermittently. So the youngster and his older brother both pitched in to help supply the family with an income. Fred delivered newspapers and worked on his grandfather's farm.

Bright in his studies, the boy skipped a couple of grades and so was graduated from grammar school In 1911 when he was 12. He immediately went to work for an uncle, Fred Jr., who had a coal and ice business in Morton Grove.After leaving grammar school Fred continued his reading under the guidance of a teacher who was anxious to see him continue his education.

Foreman Takes Interest in Young Sonne.

About 1914 he got a job with Otis Elevator company, starting as an apprentice. He first worked in the wood shop and six months later moved to the machine shop.

Charles Klein, a foreman, took an interest in the boy when he saw how interested he was in his work. Klein gave. him books to read on machine tools and taught him how to sharpen tools.

The foreman gave the youngster some advice:

"Learn to let the machine work for you. Make the ma- chine work as hard as it can and run it tr the limit of its capacity."

By heeding this advice the boy found he could get twice as much out of a machine as older men in the shop. In World War I Fred tried to get in naval aviation but was unable to do so. He worked on rudder posts for Liberty ships which the Otis plant produced.

The day before Memorial day in May, 1919, occurred the big event which changed the young man s life -- the crash of the Jenny plane in his grandfather's hay field. The occupants weren't hurt but the plane was a mess. Fred looked it over and figured he could fix it. He made a deal to rebuild it for a fourth interest.

Soon thereafter Fred quit his job with Otis and entered into an "airplane partnership."

A war time flyer instructor, Price Hollingworth, became one of the group which flew passengers at $25 a head at that time and gave exhibitions at county fairs. Passengers were flown from the grandfather's Dempster Ave. hay field. For the $25 they were given one. loop in the air and then a spin from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet.

Learn to Fly in Spring of '20

In the spring of 1920 both Losson, a motion picture projector operator, and Sonne learned to fly. Fred had 40 minutes of solo flight and then took up a passenger for $15. Later he and his associates were to stand on wings during flights at county fairs.

In 1923 the group took on a salesman named Art Weber who said he bet he could sell an airplane photo. He got an order from the Stewart-Warner corporation to take a photo of its plant for $1,200.

Sonne read a book on taking photos from the air and bor- rowed a camera. The job was a success. By that time the price of airplane rides had dropped to $5 and so the question was:

Why sell rides to passengers at $5 a ride when you can get $1,200 for photos?

Soon after the foregoing deal Sonne walked into the office of Eugene W. Fuller at 332 S. Michigan av., on business. Fuller supplied air photos to customers. He sold but could not fly, so it was a natural for him and Sonne to form a partnership. They incorporated their enterprise in 1924 as Chicago Aerial Survey company.

In the ensuing years the enterprise was successful in selling its photos to real estate, governmental, and other buyers of such pictures. The business was fairly depression proof and the partners weathered the troubles of the early 1930s without too much difficulty.

Meantime, Sonne in taking air photos frequently found that there was no camera which quite met his needs so he developed his own cameras and other equipment.

Shows Device to Army Friend in 1939.

In 1932 he had an idea for taking pictures on a continuous strip, but no use for it. He showed the device to an army friend in 1939 when war talk was in the air.

The friend was enthusiastic and soon Sonne got an order from the army air corps. The first military camera was built in the basement of Sonne's home. After getting an army order for 13 cameras the company established a small plant on W. Erie St.

Meantime, Sonne, who hat never stopped studying . the time he left school, developed numerous highly technical devices for the taking of photos in high speed planes such as jets. And his devices entered into the field of electronics.When the war ended the company had about 250 employees. Because most of its operations had become manufacturing instead of photographic the company's name was changed to the present one. Fuller was the first president. On his retirement Sonne took over the title.

A couple of years ago the company built a modern plant and now has 612 employees. It has steadily extended its activities in highly technical directions. Now like others it needs engineers and technicians.

In 1927 Sonne married Miss Eleanor R. Ruesch, whom he had met at a party. She went for an airplane ride with him on their second date. Mr. and Mrs. Sonne reside in Northfield township near the Glenview Naval Air station. Currently Fred is engaged in restoring an ancient Jenny to flying ability.

The Fred Sonne Airfield, which operated from 1919 to 1932, was established in an open prairie that stretched from Dempster Street north to the forest preserve and between what is now Moody and Meade Avenues. Early air shows were held here featuring stunts such as wing walking, parachute jumps, and other aerobatics. Chance Lawson, a pilot hired for a local promotion, had to make an emergency landing at Wayside Woods, now known as Linne Woods. One of the wings was damaged during the landing. A local resident, Fred Sonne, repaired the damaged airplane. This incident started their friendship, and later on they became business partners. The two men purchased surplus World War I biplanes which they assembled and sold to other pilots. In later years as many as 30 planes were stored at the field. Fred Sonne went on to establish the Chicago Aerial Survey Co., an air mapping and air photography company. He was later honored by the U.S. Government for his contribution to aerial photography during World War II.

Complete Popoular Mechanics article on using the Sonne camera to gauge ocean depths during World War II.

Selected newspaper profiles on Chicago Aerial Industries and its successors.

The Daily Herald, October 1, 1959

Ames Daily Tribune, August 4, 1966

Daily Herald, April 9, 1967

The Roselle Register, April 29, 1967

The Bensenville Register, July 21, 1969

Spy-camera Firm Lying Low

U.S.-china Crisis Focuses Attention On Area Company

April 06, 2001|By Rogers Worthington, Tribune staff reporter.

Officials with Recon/Optical Inc. in Barrington will reluctantly talk about the company'swork in developing airborne cameras that photographed Soviet missiles in Cuba, tracked the Viet Cong and pinpointed enemy positions during Operation Desert Storm.

But don't ask them whether their cameras were aboard the U.S. spy plane now in the hands of the Chinese.

Trained to keep a secret as well as capture one on film, company officials weren't talking Thursday.

"We sell our equipment to the U.S. government. What they do with it is the government's responsibility," said Ronald Polasek, the company's general counsel. "They don't tell us what they do with it."

The company has a select group of clients: the U.S. government and a few dozen friendly powers. Nestled amid the curved streets and greenery of quiet Barrington, it is considered one of the world's major producers of state-of-the-art reconnaissance cameras.

"They are a leader in these sorts of reconnaissance systems," said Keith Atkin, editor of Jane's Electro-Optical Systems publications in England.

ROI's products are used exclusively on military aircraft, similar to the Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion stranded in China, although that plane appears to have been a purely electronic surveillance aircraft that didn't use cameras.

Company spokesmen won't say which aircraft deploy ROI's optical sensors. But they volunteered that their cameras provided pictures in 1962 that confirmed Soviet missiles were on Cuban soil, enabling President John F. Kennedy to play a strong hand with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

The company's cameras also shot 98 percent of the pictures taken during Desert Storm and its "electro-optical"--filmless--cameras were the first such devices used during military operations in Bosnia, Polasek said.

The company makes a variety of cameras, none of which is for sale to the public--not even for those who could afford the $1 million price of some models.

ROI makes cameras capable of "long-range oblique photography." The cameras lie in the fuselage and look out side to side, providing images that come in at right angles to the aircraft.

"You can see a long way, maybe 50 to 60 miles behind front lines, if not farther," said Martin Streetly, who edits Jane's Electronic Missions Aircraft publications.

Streetly said ROI infrared cameras were used during the Vietnam War to track Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops and supply movements at night in the Mekong Delta. Now the company makes a camera that can provide clear images day or night.

ROI cameras also are capable of photographing a warship from 2,000 feet up with enough detail to evaluate every antenna, which can provide an assessment of its missile and firepower strength.

"You could get a quality of picture where you would be able to recognize a person's face," Atkin said.

An ROI optical sensor system intended for use on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat can deliver image information in real time to a ground monitoring station, Streetly said.

"The guy on the ground is seeing exactly what it is seeing," he said.

Some ROI cameras can zoom in so tightly that an object four-thousandths of an inch in diameter could be seen from an altitude of 200 feet, one analyst said.

"You could see the whisker on a gnat," said Christopher Davis, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Maryland. "This is a large, fast camera."

The company, which has 120 employees, has been in Barrington for 40 years and in the Chicago area--originally as Chicago Aerial Industries--for more than 75 years, Polasek said.

One reason for the strikingly clear pictures its cameras produce is a patented computer chip that compensates for an aircraft's speed and keeps everything in focus, even objects in the foreground, Polasek said.

About Me

I had things I wanted to say and became tired of trying to force fit views by commenting on other people's blogs, so I started this enterprise. Contact me at gradyfosterone@gmail.com
Your comments are welcome. If they are relevant, and when negative, stick to sticking it to only to public figures and don't defame or invade anyone's privacy. I'll publish them.
Extended stories about life and family history are especially fun to write. We have the great fortune to have had many relatives who had prominent civic, professional, and/or political lives, which yields many thousands of references memorialized in press clippings and otherwise. I have received plenty of help from relatives who choose to remain unnamed. Those stories garner high readership. They are tagged with "Bathgate."
I would say my politics are libertarian leaning. I seldom vote for Democrats, and usually don't vote for Republicans -- I have been known to get writer's cramp in the voting booth.
Please do read and enjoy.